Working with Kimi no different to other drivers - Alonso

Fernando Alonso says working with Kimi Raikkonen is not that different to working with any of his other team-mates over the years.

Alonso was joined by Raikkonen at Ferrari this year after the Finn was drafted in to replace Felipe Massa. The team has not produced a competitive car this year, but Raikkonen has still struggled more than Alonso.

"I don't really have an opinion on that," Alonso said. "Obviously the car is not great and we lack some downforce and traction. We had difficulties with braking at the first couple of races with brake-by-wire and other systems that we had new this year. Probably he was not feeling confident with the car and he was not totally happy with the balance."

Alonso said he has been working hard alongside Raikkonen to solve the issues, but that the relationship between them is not that different to any of the others he has had with team-mates in the past.

"Definitely we work a lot together and the meetings are quite long this year because we have a lot of things to sort out after the races. We have been constantly making suggestions and comments about what we have on the track and try to help the engineers to transfer that to Maranello to translate those comments into ideas for the car.

"It's not a big change compared to the work I have done with Felipe and any other team-mate, it's always a working relationship to try to help the team all the time.

"We can do a much better job and we haven't done a good job so far. We are making some progress, but the benchmark this year has changed - last year it was Red Bull and this year it is Mercedes. We need to get on top of the problems and arrive at that level."